These Things Happen

 

It was another cold, misty summer day in the coastal town of Lincoln City, Oregon.  I had recently turned twenty and I was feeling lost.  I was back in my small home town after dropping out of college.  My life was a mess.  I was trying to recover from a poorly done and ill-conceived double nephrectomy during the spring and my mom was struggling through kidney dialysis three days a week at clinic about an hour away and her condition was worsening.  I was working, but only minimal daytime hours.

I was lost.  Numb.  Listless.  Directionless.  So, what did I do?  I finished work and drove south to the lone record store in town.  Driftwood Mac.  Mike had been running the store for several years by that point, but I don’t think anyone knew how it survived.  I’m glad he persevered as long as he did.  It was a home of sorts.  Music and the records and CDs that contained that music were my comfort.  I loved the artwork, the smell, the feel, the sounds, and the information.  Mike was busy painting the walls of the shop.  He did this often, as well as rearranging the display racks.  The shop was rarely in the same position as the previous visit.  It never took long, before the old unchanging inventory would reveal itself.  Mike had a vast collection of 60s psychedelic band H.P. Lovecraft, as well as a strangely prolific stock of 80s American punk label SST’s discography, as well as imports from the arty UK label 4AD Records.  That’s what was so strange about his inventory is that it catered to a very small niche of music fans.  One might think that he would’ve stocked the current top 40 style artists and would’ve plastered his walls and displays with ephemera dedicated to the hit makers.  However he managed to survive, he did, and I am thankful. 

 

On that particular day, he slipped a CD into my hand, as I perused his strong supply of Dinosaur Jr. colored vinyl.  The CD was a record label compilation.  It had a very simple design.  White with an aqua flavored green font and picture.  It was named Glass Arcade and the record label was Sarah Records.  He had done this to me before.  He had given me a Flying Nun Records compilation named In Love with These Times that blew my mind!  Even at that point, a couple of years later, I was still learning new to me artists by referencing that CD.  I don’t remember if I purchased this recommendation, or if he gave it to me.  He simply told me that I would like it.  By the time I returned to my childhood room, the mist had become so thick and heavy outside that everything was soaked and it was difficult to see.  I put this unassuming CD into my player and shuffled stuff around my room, opened the window blinds and the window allowing the cool damp air into my bedroom.  The dimming light of the evening was shrouded by heavy clouds, yet a crack of sunlight emitted a haunting golden glow from the west horizon.   I laid back onto my bed and let the sound of The Field Mice’s “Holland Street” envelop me.

 

Glass Arcade included no dates, only a couple of murky green photographs, and the band names of song titles for the sixteen songs.  I did not know of any of these artists, or songs, but damn the first few songs not only felt like they fit perfectly together, but also fit the gloomy weather.  This was my definition of rainy day music.  This music was reflective, thoughtful, and quietly inventive.  I absolutely loved it!  

What was this?  This music was a timeless collection of songs from an alternate universe, where introspection is valued and introverts are the most important target audience.  I listened intently as every song played, and then began the disc again and then again.  I immediately began planning mixtapes to make that included a lot of these songs paired with similar things I had discovered in the few years leading up to this moment.  Some of those early Creation Records bands, some of the 4AD artists like the Cocteau Twins, and my favorite songs by The Go-Betweens.  I felt inspired by this mysterious music.

 

It would be a couple years before I learned that the occasional Sarah Records release that I would purchase were actually new and that this music was currently being made.  I hadn’t been sure if these were artifacts from another period of time.  I felt like I had been pretty knowledgeable about music, yet this entire Sarah thing had alluded me.

I’m currently reading These Things Happen: The Sarah Records Story by author Jane Duffus (https://www.janeduffus.com/sarah-records).  I’ve had the book for about a year and a half, but am just now getting to it, and I am reading its finely detailed account of the label and the co-conspirators involved incredibly slowly.  It’s a well written book and completely thorough, immersive and enjoyable (for Sarah Records fans especially).  I am savoring it.  Not only am I a huge fan of the label and most of the artists who recorded for them, but I am a huge fan of the inspiration that this fandom provided me. 

It was that punk rock thing.  The Do It Yourself thing that was cool.  Not the DIY corporate sloganeering that defined home makeover design media in the early 00s, but the make the shit you like – anyone can do it idea that Punk rock first brought about.  Don’t like what you hear on the radio, then make your own music.  The music of Sarah and the way the label tried to go about things by being fair to their artists and fans by trying to avoid the sexist greed and depravity of the rock-n-roll institution was not just noteworthy, but admirable.  Sarah, along with many small indie labels such as K, Slumberland, Pop Narcotic, SpinArt, Teen-Beat, Simple Machines, and Independent Project Records, helped me feel a part of a community.  I’ve never been a scenester.  I have always been reluctant to fall in with a particular insular music scene.  Yet with artists, labels, and mail order distributers all over the western world introducing me to terrific music, it felt like my world was expanding and that somehow I was part of it.  No, I wasn’t making music, but I was helping spread the word and supporting those who did.  It was rewarding and exciting!  I was corresponding with people all across the globe on a very personal level, instead of just memorizing their names from record sleeves as I listened to their music.  Nearly every day I was receiving 7” singles, demo tapes, letters, or postcards in the mail.  This was what inspired me to start writing and to (mistakenly) believe that my voice was valid.  Even though my world was growing through this indie music stuff, it also felt smaller.  Suddenly, I fely=t important.  Everything was not so daunting.  It helped me realize that there are lost souls everywhere and we can bond over our shared sensibilities.  It wasn’t long after Mike introduced me to the Glass Arcade compilation that the idea of This Wreckage was born.   Who would’ve thought I’d be still trying to make it interesting 34 years later?  

Whatever the case, reading about how immersive the Sarah devotees were back when the label was active (1987-1995), reminded me to go back and listen to my introduction and how it made me feel then.  It still inspires me as much as the music gives me those rainy day vibes.  Yes, there’s a lot of nostalgia there, as I miss the idealism and the innocence of my own youth.  It makes me wonder if it’s not just me losing that fire with age, or if we as a whole have.  I’m savoring the book because I do want those feelings back and listening to these old songs helps. 

 

This Is Our Emergency

“When you've finally thrown up your hands
Poured your heart out, yet nothing stands
It seems our efforts are wasted
But yet it hasn't been in vain”


1991 was a terrible year. It started out with a three week intensive college course named “The Holocaust,” which was worse than it sounds. Then I had to drop out of school, because my mom’s horrific medical issues meant I was needed at home to help. Unfortunately, instead I spent nearly two months in the hospital after a surgery went poorly. The bulk of the year was spent working part time and driving my mom to and from her dialysis treatments out of town. It was all too late to help her though, because by September, she was gone. My friend, Wil, wasn’t having a great time of it either. He had been hospitalized for extended stretches and when home, found that he was so heavily medicated that about all he could do was sleep. Yet, out of all this darkness, something sparked between the two of us and we found a way to create something that helped inspire us and brought us closer together as friends. It was a little over 20 years ago we began a small ‘zine named This Wreckage. A project, which in many ways, got me through that terrible time and the reason why I still make half-hearted attempts at writing today via this site.

For those unfamiliar with ‘zines, they were in some sense a precursor to so many of the millions of blogs out there on the web now, but instead we used paper, typewriters, scissors, paste and photocopiers to get our message to an audience. The term ‘zine, which we hated with a passion, came from “fanzine.” Fanzines were homemade, self-published tomes, generally about one particular subject. We named our ‘zine after the 1980 Gary Numan song and produced seven issues over about a two year span. Along the way, we destroyed Mike’s photocopier (Mike, the owner of Driftwood Mac, Lincoln City’s record store, in a sense, was our benefactor), gave L.M. Tomiself a place to seemingly incite fury in anyone who read his writings, we wrote about the L.A riots, religion, and music, and Wil’s demented cartoons always adorned several pages. At one point, a naïve culture paper named Perpetua, published in Seal Rock, gave us a page in their much bigger paper (they had ads and a staff!) for a couple of months. We bit that hand by publishing a rant about the hypocrisy of hippies at a Kenny Loggins environmental rally, featured a questionable cartoon about Somalia and wrote negative reviews of all the promo CDs Perpetua wanted us to write about. That relationship ended after we were chased down by security at the Galleria for leaving Perpetua all over the mall without permission. It all ended in the fall of 1993 with an issue printed on newsprint instead of a photocopier (the pinnacle of ‘zinedom!). Unfortunately, by this point, we had become discouraged by the lack of real response from anyone, besides a few of our friends who submitted art and writing along the way. Plus the expense of printing it entirely out of our pockets became frivolous, because we now had rent and food to cover. The ultimate slap in the face came months after we printed that final issue, when another ‘zine that reviewed ‘zines gave us a glowing review for content, but in the end gave us poor marks, because there was no price included on our cover (it was always free), so the writer assumed that it would be too expensive to recommend to his readers.

Sometimes that same feeling of discouragement overcomes me when I post entries onto this new single minded version of This Wreckage. There’s a need inside anyone who creates art of any type for an audience. When there’s little or no sign of an audience, that artist inevitably questions the point of creating in the first place. It’s only natural. Don’t get me wrong, I am not calling what I’m doing here “art,” but I do find myself wondering why I bother to share these things, because there’s no audience for it. I wonder where the motivation comes from.

“Unfulfillment is killing you
Seems like no one shares the same view

We may have never met but

It might you who pulls me through”

Music has always been my motivation. My love of music and inherent need to share the new music I love with my friends has always been a part of who I am. It is undeniable, so I just go with it. When Wil and I first started doing This Wreckage a little over 20 years ago, music was the driving force for me. It was never featured particularly (every issue ended with music reviews), but it was always there. To be frank, I was hoping to get a bunch of demos and promos for free, so I wouldn’t have to keep spending all of my money on new music. Looking back now, after all these years, what I realize is that the importance of the work we did then was not what we thought we were seeking (an audience, free music, new friends and contacts, and in our most grandiose moments, a dream of earning a living by doing cool stuff and revolution!), instead it was the work itself. Rarely have I felt so inspired and driven as I did when we put those old ‘zines together, plus I don’t think Wil and I were ever closer as friends then when we were collaborating. We had so much fun making those issues that we still talk about recreating it in some form to this day, mainly so we have an excuse to hang out with a purpose and recruit our other friends to join us.

“Don't forget that when you doubt

That anyone will care about

A thing you do and when you're lost

Someone else is always found”

This Wreckage’s final issue may have gotten screwed by a misinformed review back in the day, but its epitaph came along nearly a year after it had been distributed. A small trickle of letters started to appear in the PO Box from mostly High School and college kids who liked what they saw and wanted to let us know that our work impacted and inspired them. We received our first paid advertisement (which was reluctantly returned rather than making a new issue simply because we finally had an ad), and along the way, we met some really cool people who have become long time friends. We met people we may not have otherwise (like when I found myself asking advice from Tsunami’s Jenny Toomey over the phone!), and we did indeed receive some pretty cool demos along the way from various bands such as Versus, Tugboat Annie, and 17 Relics.

Speaking of which, my recent posting of 2011’s best music shockingly has garnered some new music from a band looking for a feature on this very blog. This is the sort of thing I daydreamed about when we started the ‘zine, and now I’m not sure what to do, so I’ll review it and continue to enjoy the process of writing and communicating, no matter who is or isn’t paying attention.

Tremor Low
Kingmaker EP
(self-released)

Here we have a 5 track EP that harkens back to the goth-tinged romance bands of the early 80s like The Cure. This Bay Area four piece has tapped into some nice energy here. An early 80s post-punk vibe is clearly a touchstone here, as the first track is named “Peter Murphy’s Dead” and musically fires on all upbeat raincoat rock cylinders. Actually, their sound reminds me of a nice matching of L.A. band The Autumns and the UK’s Ray (see their Death in Fiction from a few years back). It’s amazing how these sorts of sounds make their way back into the consciousness of each new generation, since so much of this was under heard at the time. But, if the sound is done right and with passion, it is always welcome in my book. The driving title track “Kingmaker” is the highlight here with it’s sing along “Who are you?” chorus, delicate chiming guitars and splashy drumming make for a nice listen. The other big favorite is the closing “2003,” which evokes the aforementioned Peter Murphy’s dreamy solo work. This is a very consistent and enjoyable collection of songs. If any of the touchstones I mentioned are of interest, chances are you will find something to like here.
(facebook.com/tremorlow)




lyrics and title from Pretty Girls Makes Graves